Sony's new 30" 4K OLED Reference Monitor also has HDR and a wider colour gamut

Sony BVM-X300

This is a monitor you're (literally) going to want to watch

Sony's new BM-X300 is the monitor that you may already have dreamed about. It has all the current buzzwords (OLED, HDR, 4K and Wide Colour Gamut) and packages them into a very convenient 30" form factor.

Designed as a reference monitor for colour grading and otherwise displaying your work in precise detail, it has inputs that can handle true 4K (4096 x 2160) at up to 60 frames per second.

Let's have a closer look at these capabilities:

OLED

OLED monitors have the best blacks you can get. Without any need for a backlight - because the pixels on the screen generate their own light - blacks are black in the way that the dictionary definition of black intended: they're an absence of light. So you get real-world contrast with OLEDs, something that's very difficullt with their biggest competitor, LCDs.

HDR

True blacks are just one half of the High Dynamic Range equation. You also need very bright whites, and that's what Sony claims this monitor can do. HDR is going to be big in the next few years, and this is the sort of monitor you'll need to see it in its full quality.

4K

This is true 4K, so there will be no possibility of confusing material with UHD, or wrongly framing it.

Wide Colour Gamut

You can't see colours that your screen can't reproduce, so with a wider range of colurs, including 80% of the new ITU-R BT2020 colour gamut, you have a better chance of seeing how your production actually looks.

There's a load more material in Sony's press release, which we reproduce in full below. It doesn't give the price, but we're guessing that while it won't be cheap, it will be affordable if you need a master monitor of this quality. (Update: one commenter has seen a preliminary price in Europe of €30,000.)

Sony Expands Trimaster EL Series with First OLED Designed for Pro Video Production

New BVM-X300 Master Monitor Delivers 4K Resolution, Unequalled High Dynamic Range and Expanded Color Gamut Flexibility

Sony’s new BVM-X300 is its first OLED master monitor to combine 4K resolution, High Dynamic Range and a Wide Color Gamut display. The new 30-inch model expands Sony’s Trimaster EL series and provides an OLED option for professional video production applications including color grading, on-set monitoring and quality control in a 4K workflow.

The new monitor was unveiled this week at the Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) Tech Retreat, Feb. 9-13 in Indian Wells, Calif.

“This new monitor offers the same performance of all our TRIMASTER EL OLED monitors, including unparalleled black performance, color reproduction, quick pixel response,”

said Gary Mandle, senior product manager for professional displays. “The addition of features like 4K resolution, HDR and an RGB OLED panel for wider color gamut and better color uniformity make this an invaluable on-set tool for production professionals.”

High Dynamic Range Mode

In addition to the high-contrast performance of the entire TRIMASTER EL OLED panel, this new monitor provides High Dynamic Range mode, giving users the ability to view the entire range of an image accurately and clearly.

“This feature offers never-seen-before image reproduction – the black is black, and peak brightness can be reproduced more realistically with colors that are typically saturated in a
conventional standard dynamic range,” said Mandle. “This mode can brilliantly express sparkling town lights and stars in the night sky.

The BVM-X300 monitor has a new integrated control panel with integrated inputs. This means there are no options required to complete the system, giving users a “plug-and-play” system right out of the box.

Wide Color Gamut Display

The emission layers in the new monitor’s 4K panel as well as new layering design give the BVM-X300 the ability to display ITU-R BT709 and DCI-P3 color gamuts more accurately than any previous Sony Trimaster display. In addition, the new BVM-X300 can display 80% of the new ITU-R BT2020 color gamut.

This master monitor supports both 2 Sample Interleave (2SI) and Square Division signals.

It also supports HD signals including 3G-SDI Quad-link up to 4096 x 2160/48p 50p 60p, 3G-SDI single link for 1920 x 1080/50p 60p, YCbCr 4:2:2 10-bit, and 3G-SDI dual link for 1920 x1080/50p 60p, 4:4:4 12/10-bit.

The BVM-X300 OLED 4K master monitor is planned to be available in February.